Mindlink (13 page)

“You guessed?” Natalie looked at
One
. “Did she guess correctly?”

He saw no reason to misrepresent the unfortunate reality. “Yes.
She learned the meaning from me. We accidentally linked implants.”

“What does that mean? Linked?” Freddy demanded and the others
eyed The Redhead uneasily. “Are you sucking her brain out through a psychic
pipeline or something?”

“No, nothing like that,” Ashley answered before
One
could formulate a response. “It’s like a movie
inside my head but they’re Sam’s memories and thoughts. Sometimes it’s vivid
pictures and sometimes it’s more like a strong impression of an emotion. There’s
lots of meanings and layers.”

Her hands dipped as she talked, forming shapes, signs or some
other unfathomable thing which she alone understood. It was fascinating to watch
someone so animated.

A clear sense of duality streamed through the link. The words
and thoughts were separate, different. Her true feelings about the link were
clouded, yet she preferred the other to believe the link posed no issue for her.
A ruse. Why?

“Oh and the pictures always come with a migraine. We can’t
easily turn it off,” she finished and dropped her hands.

The tall one narrowed his eyes and swiveled toward
One
. “How odd. Does it work in reverse, as well?”

“Yeah,” Ashley answered for him and squinted. “Show ’em how it
works. What am I thinking about now?”

Pain exploded in his head, along with the image of a giant gray
beast sporting a long nose. “Stop. The link is not an amusement. It is a
tool.”

The boy stiffened, the first movement he’d made in quite some
time. An orb rolled through the square, clicking as it monitored the maintenance
workers.

“What is that?” the tall one asked. “It sounds like a ticking
time bomb.”

He raised a hand, palm out. “No one move,” he whispered. “It’s
a Security orb. It reads a citizen’s ID and determines if the worker is
performing their duties. The city is full of them.” It hadn’t sensed them yet
and wouldn’t if everyone remained still.

The Redhead froze. “There’s what, like a camera in that hamster
ball?”

Ping
.

One
glanced at the handheld’s
screen. His heart stumbled. The system-wide alert for the seven of them blinked
back at him, which he’d expected quite some time ago. He’d prepared for it by
changing their IDs. Yet reality washed over him with a chill.

Fear
. His reaction to this alert
had been fear. Black, encompassing fear—as The Redhead experienced fear. He
concentrated on his pounding heart to evaluate. He’d been afraid before, but
always suppressed it. Never had it been so strong though. Was the link causing
him to develop humanlike responses to stimuli?

The handheld died. He didn’t bother to check the others.
Someone had deactivated the devices remotely. It was only a matter of time
before Security discovered the switched IDs. Until then, they were still
invisible and he disliked not knowing when they would reappear.

He raised his eyes to meet The Redhead’s liquid ones, and the
shock stuttered his heart anew. But differently. An almost physical connection
pulled at him. The Telhada frowned on anything incapable of producing results
and shrewdly perpetuated the custom of not meeting another’s eyes. Now he knew
why. Sensation. Emotion. Color. None of these contributed to duty and
purpose.

He stared at a spot on the pristine wall behind her long enough
to settle his insides before he spoke to the others. “The handhelds are useless
now. Leave them. We will stay here until second-meal and then travel to the
perimeter. Beware the orbs and remain hidden.”

Being a fugitive fit him as well as the worker’s uniform fit
the overweight one. Only a profound sense of responsibility to these unfortunate
humans drove him forward. He refused to dwell on the life wrenched away, the
goals he’d never realize. Even now, someone else sat in his chair, in his
office, monitoring his workers. The Telhada did not rest and their mechanisms
would continue on without him.

* * *

Natalie caught up to Ashley after they finally—
finally
—left the alcove once the workers finished and
the city grew quiet enough for Sam. They hobbled along the hard road in edgy
silence. Ashley’s leg muscles were tensed to flee for cover at a moment’s
notice. Or as fast as she could flee with her knee throbbing.

“I’m so tired,” Natalie said quietly. “I don’t think I’ve ever
been this tired in my life, not even when I had the flu. And everything hurts.
It just never ends, you know? We land here and then we’re dropped into this
nightmare. And the worst part is no one at home will know they sent us into a
trap.”

Ashley nodded. “That’s been on my mind too. I might as well not
be famous at all, because if I die here, no one will even know.” She’d had her
own Academy Awards Ceremony tribute written out in her head for years, but would
they run one if she vanished into the cosmos instead of dying on the sidewalk
outside an L.A. club?

“I’m scared.” Natalie’s eyes filled. “How do you seem so calm?
I mean, I’m a Jell-O mess inside and I feel like I could throw up at any second.
You don’t even look bad, except for the bruises.”

“It’s going to be fine.” Ashley put a soothing hand on
Natalie’s arm. She wished she could say Natalie didn’t look bad either, but the
bruising on her face was ghastly. “Sam is helping us. We’re going to make it
home, I’m positive.”

“How can you be so sure?” Natalie sneaked a glance at Sam, her
mouth set in a hostile line. “He’s an alien. One of
them
. I don’t care if he’s helping us, I don’t trust him.”

“I trust him more than I trust Dr. Glasses over there. That guy
is a huge pain in the butt and so far, has done nothing to get us out of this.
At least Sam is trying.” The link revealed so much more than Natalie could ever
know. More than Ashley cared to admit.

“Dr. Glasses?” Natalie smirked. “That’s classic.”

Ashley smiled. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud but if it
raised Natalie’s spirits a little, she’d consider it a win.

They trooped after Sam like a group of simpleminded ducks, and
about as quietly. Freddy blended pretty well as long as he didn’t talk but Dr.
Glasses wouldn’t know grace if it introduced itself. Natalie walked like she’d
learned how yesterday, likely due to being beaten. Fear, pain and exhaustion
messed with Ashley’s balance too, so she’d skip critiquing either of their
less-than-runway-worthy struts.

The boy trailed them all. He moved so silently, especially for
a kid, but he kept up with Sam’s breakneck pace, no problem.

“I thought everyone under the age of fifteen was a brat,”
Ashley said to Natalie and nodded back at the boy. “He’s not. Alien children
must get extra Wheaties and a triple dose of Ritalin in the morning.”

On second thought, it was more likely they threw bratty
children into jail and tortured them until they straightened up.

“Yeah.” Natalie tried to smooth her hair out of her face but
one stubborn clump kept falling back across her eye until she gave up. “He’s not
like any child I’ve ever met either.”

Alien-jail had done a number on Ashley. What would it have done
to a little boy? She didn’t know a thing about children, alien or otherwise, but
she missed her mom and he probably did too.

“We should walk with him,” Ashley suggested.

Natalie agreed and they slowed to match the boy’s pace, but he
didn’t acknowledge them. At all. Despite his back-off vibe, she wanted him know
he wasn’t alone. Sam did that for her. She could do it for the boy.

The alien city was eerily still. Glass pyramids towered
overhead and concrete streets stretched away to infinity. Aliens left almost no
trace of themselves when not present. No cars, billboards, stray dogs. There
wasn’t even trash on the street. Their advanced technology appeared at will,
called forth by the tappy things.

With mealtime in full swing, they didn’t come across any more
aliens. Everyone did stuff at the same time as everyone else. No one veered from
the schedule. She had a grudging respect for whoever watched the clocks around
here after having been on sets where the director’s assistant tore out their
hair over calls running hours behind.

She frowned. Okay, a time or two, she might have been the cause
of the schedule slips. No one really went by the call sheet anyway and directors
always demanded actors hit marks way before they needed them. But she’d never
considered how difficult it must be to run a shoot with so many people trying to
do their own thing.

She vowed to wow the director of
Vertigo
Society
. He’d praise Ashley V’s professionalism and
ability to show up on time if it killed her. If she made it home.
When
. She refused to believe they wouldn’t make it
after all this.

Rolling orbs clicked like gunshots in the distance. They hugged
walls when Sam said to and tiptoed when he said so. A society full of aliens who
were all with the program allowed them to creep through silent streets and to
hear danger before they saw it. The weather was dreary but comfortable. Dr.
Glasses wasn’t talking. For the first time, things seemed to be looking up.

After what felt like hours, they were still walking. The
uniform fit okay but the weird work boots were too big and chafed with every
step. If they’d been leather, the size might not have been such an issue, but
they were manufactured from slick material, an alien cross between the spongy
stuff of diving suits and her mother’s sealskin coat.

The little boy trudged along beside her, stoic and
uncomplaining, but clearly as exhausted as everyone else. His legs were shorter,
forcing him to take two steps for every one of Sam’s. For his sake, she hoped
alien children had extra stamina.

“Are we there yet?” she asked sarcastically as they passed yet
another pyramid. Freddy laughed but no one else did. A while back, he’d slung an
arm around Natalie, who also seemed to be having trouble with her boots. For all
his now-absent slick polish, he had a good heart underneath, something she’d
probably never notice at home.

“The perimeter is approximately fifteen kilometers,” Sam
answered.

“That’s worse than telling me the temperature in Celsius.
Translation?”

Dr. Glasses twisted around to glare at her as he lumbered
along. “Nine miles for you clueless Americans. So shut up and conserve your
energy, Miss Hollywood.”

Her earlier resolve and bravado faltered in the face of so much
uncertainty and flat-out discomfort. What good did it do to have Sam on their
side if they didn’t make it out of the city?

Ashley walked for as long as she could without talking and then
when she couldn’t stand it anymore she whispered, “Don’t you guys have like a
car or something we can use?”

A bullet train-type thing floating on air appeared in her mind.
Fantastic. Train, car, whatever, as long as it meant she could get off her
feet.

The others perked up at the question but then Sam dashed any
hope. “Transportation is communal and accessed via implants. Our new IDs may
have already been detected. We cannot risk it.”

So that was that. Her legs burned with each step and her whole
body still ached from the prison guards’ alien-land welcome. Yet she slogged
forward on this torturous trek toward an impenetrable barrier Sam had no plan
for getting through. He’d been blasting her for the last few minutes with
increasing concern over what they’d do when they got there. Her earlier optimism
disappeared, and she was done.

Ashley V did not walk.

She stopped and sank to the ground. “I’m not moving another
inch.”

Everyone else stopped too and Dr. Glasses followed her to the
ground. She schooched to a spot where the stink of his sweat wasn’t so
pungent.

“We do not have time for this.” Sam crossed his arms and looked
down his nose at her.

She refused to be moved. “I haven’t eaten. I can’t remember
what it feels like to be clean. Or to brush my hair. I don’t want to think about
how long it’s been since the last time I had a drink. I’d take four fingers of
Jack straight up at this point.”

“Here, here,” Freddy piped in.

She ignored him. “The blisters aren’t worth it. Can’t we find
another place to hide and figure out a different plan?”

Natalie murmured something and Sid nodded his head. “Yes,” he
said. “I didn’t understand the reason for exiting the city in the first
place.”

They all looked at Sam, whose expression never faltered.
Nothing made him lose his composure, even when the link revealed his
uncertainty. She wished she could learn that.

They’d stopped to the right of a building entrance and the
light over the door shone down on Sam, cloaking him in an otherworldly glow,
which contrasted with the gloom of the city. He wasn’t attractive, at least not
by Hollywood standards, but he did have a powerful presence that pulled at her,
demanding she follow him. Anywhere.

There was something compelling about a take-charge kind of guy.
Especially in certain circumstances. Her pulse quickened. So did her
imagination.

“Stand and walk. You will cause us to be captured,” he told her
in a way that said he expected to be obeyed.

Yeah, and when he looked at her like that, with his dynamic
magnetism sizzling all around, she totally forgot he wasn’t hot. The
out-of-place kick to her abdomen snapped her back to reality and brought out the
defenses.

“There’s nobody around,” she said with an exaggerated head
swivel, heart pounding as she emptied her mind. “It’ll be fine. Everyone needs
to rest.

Sam bent and gripped her arm, easily lifting her to her feet.
“We must exit the city and hide in the forest. No other alternative exists.”